


To Bethlehem it Slouched, and Then

by sequence_fairy



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: (maybe?) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Gen, Grief, Hurt but not a lot of comfort, Loneliness, Unresolved Apocalypse Angst, a panic attack happens but it's okay, because we gotta have a hopeful ending, just a smidge, off screen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 14:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21017426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Shane sinks back onto his elbows, stretching his legs out.“I miss showering,” he says. Ryan hums in agreement, reaching up to scuff his hand through his hair. The fire snaps, throwing up a shower of sparks, briefly illuminating the top of the overhang they’re sitting under.“I miss coffee,” Ryan says, shifting until he’s mirroring Shane’s position on the other side of the flames. “I miss the internet. God help me,” he says, glancing up at the stone above them, like it might offer some kind of deliverance, “I even miss Twitter.”The world ended three days ago, and neither of them are handling it very well, to be honest.





	To Bethlehem it Slouched, and Then

**Author's Note:**

> Started this _months_ ago, discovered that it was done when I went to re-read it this morning. 
> 
> Thanks to [Jennie](http://hallowwen.tumblr.com) and [Ember](http://emberglows.tumblr.com) for the beta. 
> 
> I'd apologise, but y'all had to imagine that the angst would eventually arrive.

Apocalyptic. That's the word, Shane thinks, staring out at the wasteland before him. The remains of Los Angeles are a smudge of smoke on the horizon, the desert a stretch of unbroken desolation between them and the fire. Behind him, Ryan is puttering with something, but Shane doesn't turn around. He's watching, waiting, feeling the tight-wound edge of something coming, anxiety remaining only just-furled in his chest. 

This hanging moment at the end of the world is a respite from the endless trek they've been on for the last three days, heading east and further into the scrubby desert. Ryan thinks they should keep heading east, convinced that eventually they will come across someone who can tell them what happened. Shane thinks they should stay as far away from civilization as possible. They've not yet reached an acceptable compromise, so they're still pointed vaguely east and Shane is still worried about running into anyone else who might be out here with them.

They'd escaped the wreck of the city in Ryan's car, driven as far as they could, by backroad and desert track, until they could go no further, having run out of gas. Then they'd walked, swapping off carrying Ryan’s backpack, hoping they might find something to fill it, knowing that they were walking into a barren world of sand and scrubby trees and a sun so merciless it would drive them mad before killing them. 

The sun on Shane's shoulders had been a heavy weight, and even now, he can feel the itch of the burn underneath the plaid flannel. Out here, in the cave they'd fetched up against after that first long march in the heat of the midday sun, all they have is the clothes on their backs and the remains of the last gas station they’d passed, pumps run dry and door left wide-open, an invitation to their curiosity.

They’d crept inside, wary, but there’d been no one there. The place had been ransacked, shelves thrown and emptied, perishable food spoiling in the heat. Ryan had pulled the neck of his t-shirt up over his nose to mask the smell of slowly rotting dairy. Shane had coughed, swallowed hard, and done a turn around the perimeter of the store, rifling through overturned shelving, looking for anything they could carry. They’d met at the counter, by some ingrained instinct, and stood there, each of them weighed down by an armful of what might charitably be called provisions, for a full minute. Ryan cracked first with a startled wheeze, and Shane had joined in shortly after. 

Result: they’d both ended up on the floor, leaning back against the counter, tossing Chicago-style popcorn at each other, while trying to stop laughing. It was probably the not-so-nice kind of hysteria, Shane thinks now; but at the time, it had been the good kind, and for just half a moment, he’d forgotten about everything. It had been second nature to drag Ryan in for a scuffling hug, the mostly empty popcorn bag crushed between them. Ryan had let him, consenting to be pulled in. Shane had gripped him hard around the shoulders, and then pressed his forehead into the skin laid bare by the way the hug pulled the collar of Ryan’s t-shirt askew. 

The enormity of everything had yet to sink in, neither of them yet quite prepared to deal with what the echoing thunder of the first explosion meant, nor the ones that came after. Ryan’s skin had smelled like dust and sweat and desert heat. He’d smelled warm and alive and Shane had been able to feel the beat of Ryan’s heart, steady and soothing. Something familiar in this landscape of surreality. 

“You alright?” Ryan had asked, careful, speaking to Shane the way you might speak to a spooked horse. Shane had pulled away, ducking his head to wipe at his face. A gust of wind made the propped-open door shudder, and Ryan’s gaze jumped towards the sound. 

They’d picked themselves up, and when Shane had stepped behind the counter to dig a pack of smokes out from behind the shielded shelves, Ryan hadn’t said anything, merely raised an eyebrow. Shane had ignored him then, shoving the box into the top pocket of his shirt. It’s there, still. Shane’s habit is long broken, and was not altogether the most enduring of addictions for him, but the comfort of the small cardboard box against his chest was akin to the familiarity of Ryan’s skin. 

They’d left the gas station behind them, leaving the door mostly closed but propped open enough that the next passerby might also have a chance at a moment’s respite. The heat of the day was on them then, and the foreground shimmered with it, the road a liquid illusion as the heat of the blacktop baked them from the bottom up. Shane had resolutely kept his layers on, but Ryan had stripped down to his t-shirt, tying his button-up around his waist, and then, once they’d stepped off the road and into the proper wild, heading for the hills and the hope of shade, he’d wrapped it around his head. 

By the time they’d gained the first rise of the hills, Shane was wilting from exhaustion and heat. Ryan had urged him on, until all that Shane could think about was one foot in front of the other, each step taking more and more of his concentration, and each one bringing him closer to a misstep and the horrifying potential injury. Eventually, Ryan had stopped, turned around and looked back at Shane, doggedly climbing the trail behind him. Sweat dripped off Ryan’s face, and glistened along the length of his arms. 

“Not much further,” Ryan had whispered, when Shane caught up. Shane had nodded, weary and unable to speak.

They’d continued on. 

Finally, they’d reached the self-same cave Shane was standing in the mouth of now. They’d eaten, drank enough water to wet their throats, and then stretched out on the cool stone.

Shane had woken to the sound of a shrill alarm and then the sound of Ryan’s grumbling, as he fought to find and then silence his phone. 

“Still need your alarm even at the end of the world?” Shane had asked, voice rough from a combination of dehydration, the previous day’s exertion, and sleep. The air was clammy cold in the cave, and outside the sky held only the barest hint of the dawn. 

“Didn’t think to turn it off,” Ryan had answered, sitting up, and poking at the screen of his phone. 

“D’you have any service?” 

“No,” Ryan had answered, turning to show Shane his screen. Ryan’s lockscreen is a picture of them, goofily mugging for the camera at some party Shane barely remembered. “Haven’t had any since the–” Ryan paused, but Shane could fill in the blank well enough. 

“Yeah.” A beat. Then, “You should save the battery, maybe we’ll find somewhere with signal.” 

It’s been three days.

Ryan's phone is mostly dead. Shane's is lost, probably during the desperate shove through the crowds on the streets once it became apparent that getting out of the city was necessary in order to survive. That he'd even found Ryan in that seething mass of panicked humanity was a miracle in and of itself. But he had. He'd seen the snapback and the broad shoulders and thought  _ Ryan? _ and when he’d reached out, it had been. Ryan's relief had been palpable in the air between them, but only for a moment. He'd grabbed Shane's hand and dragged him sideways through the crowd until they'd slipped out of the crush of people and into an alley. 

"We have to get out," Ryan had said, face turned up, scanning the sky. Shane had nodded. "My place is closer. I've got half a tank of gas, maybe." 

They'd made for Ryan's apartment building but the stench of smoke preceded their arrival. Shane's sinking stomach had known what they would find; a wreck of tumbled down walls and shattered glass. Shane had had a brief and powerful moment of gratitude that Ryan hadn't been home. His eyes skipped over the rubble, not looking too close, careful to avoid seeing the fate of those unlucky enough to have been in the building. Ryan had stopped, face gone slack, in the face of the devastation. For a long moment, he'd stared. 

Shane's chest tightened, heart clenching in desperate fear. He hadn't been home either. Would Sara– Would Obi–? Oh, God. Shane sucked in a breath, fingers dug into his own thighs, feeling the strain of the weave of his chinos, wanting to feel it give and tear. Shane had swallowed against the rising grief in his throat, the feeling akin to swallowing glass, like he'd screamed himself hoarse.

"Shane," Ryan had said, low and aching, like he'd reached the same conclusion. Shane had turned, and shaken his head. Not now, maybe not ever, but certainly not now. Ryan had let out a long, slow breath. "Okay," he'd said, nodding to himself. "Okay."

Ryan had pivoted on his heel and gone for his car, turning his back on the remains of the place he'd lived. Shane had followed him in a daze, dropping into the passenger seat of Ryan's car. The familiarity of sitting there next to Ryan, against the backdrop of LA burning, was surreal in the most visceral way. Shane had stared, unseeing, out the window as Ryan drove, as they followed the lines of cars filled with people who'd had the same idea. The city was half in ruins, towers shattered by the same cataclysmic event that had blown out all the windows in the bullpen at the office and fires burning swift and hot. The smell of smoke hung heavily in the air. 

Now, out in the desert, staring at the billowing smoke on the horizon as the sky turns to red and orange while the sun sinks closer to the horizon, Shane finds himself thinking about Sara. The ache of her loss is a knife lodged in between his ribs. Ryan hadn't offered to go back for her, and they'd fought, viciously, when Shane had come back to himself once they'd reached the outskirts of the city proper. Shane shivers now, remembering what he'd said, his voice a growl of pain and Ryan's eyes, wide and frightened, his own grief etched in the tightness around his jaw. 

Shane had remembered then, that Ryan's whole family lived in LA, and that maybe they were all gone too and he'd left them, just as they'd left Sara. The thought had swamped Shane, leaving him shocked into silence, the only sound between them the harsh pant of Shane's breathing. Ryan had reached for him then, probably to lend a comforting hand. Shane had flinched, violently, panic lighting up every nerve ending. Ryan's other hand had jerked on the wheel, pulling the car sideways and nearly careening them onto the valley floor, before Ryan got them back under control again. 

Once the immediate threat of death by vehicular misadventure had passed, Shane had made Ryan pull over, scrambled out of the car, and been sick until he was shaking. When he was done, he'd sat back on his heels, stomach aching and throat raw. Ryan had waited him out, standing nearby but far enough away that Shane would have had to move to reach out for him. The sun had been merciless then, high overhead and baking the ground, the heat rising in shimmering waves.

Eventually, Shane had picked himself up, dusted off his pants, and folded himself back into Ryan's car. They'd driven into the night, across state lines, until the gas gauge hit the red line and the car came to a rolling stop on a two lane blacktop in Nevada. It had been, according to the car's clock, nearing 4am. They'd sat in the silence of the desert, the sky a spill of stars overhead, until Shane had fallen asleep, his head resting on the cool glass. 

When he'd woken up, the car was an oven and Ryan was still asleep, body turned towards Shane, driver's seat reclined back as far as it could be. Ryan looked relaxed, in a way that he never did while awake, forehead smooth and hands curled into loose fists up next to his face.

Shane had decided to let him sleep, because who knew where they would sleep next or when, and slipped out of the car, closing the door gently behind him. He’d stepped away from the car and down into the scrubby brush off the shoulder. All around him there was only a devouring silence. 

“Sara,” Shane had said, to the dirt and the cacti and the small shrubs. Grief welled up without the nausea and the sharp-edged pain, just a dull ache under his breastbone, in the place that used to light up with warmth when she’d smile at him. 

He says it now, again, in the quiet of his own head, to the empty sky, the blue no longer criss-crossed by condensation trails. He hasn’t seen a plane since the morning before everything went to hell. There are still birds and other things, but they’ve seen no other people, not since they outpaced the last car that was following them. 

They haven't talked about what they’re doing out here, nor have they talked about anything else. They’ve settled into a silence, brought on by the fight in the car, punctuated only by the brief respite of shared hysterical laughter. They’re stuck with each other for the time being, maybe for longer than that. Shane knows they should talk, but they haven’t, and the longer he leaves it, the more comfortable he is with the silence, and the harder it is to think about how to open the conversation. 

As usual, Ryan saves him from himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, settling onto a still-warm rock at the mouth of the cave. The sun has set and the sky has turned inky black above them. “I should have–we should have–” Ryan heaves a breath, letting it out on a long sigh. 

Shane turns to look at him, taking in this Ryan, lit by starshine and moonglow, eyes darker than the sky above them. This Ryan whose face is thinner, whose eyes are tired, whose shoulders are slumped, and whose hands are curled into loose fists in his lap. This Ryan who dragged him out of the city, who got them here, who made sure they were okay. This Ryan, doing what he’s always done, leading them through the fire and back out again, Shane following, as always, in his wake.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan repeats, “Shane, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine–I just–”

Shane cuts Ryan off. “No,” he says, shifting so he can look at Ryan properly. “It’s not–it’s not your fault. Sara–” Shane’s voice cracks. He takes a breath. Even dulled by exhaustion and the beginnings of real true hunger, it hurts to think about her, to think about what might’ve happened, where she might’ve ended up. The problem, he thinks, is that they have no way of knowing for sure. The last message that got through on Ryan’s phone is from Steven, a jumble of letters and numbers, and neither of them know what to make of it.

“I should’ve–I should’ve listened to you, gone back, done  _ something _ , instead of just–” Ryan sighs, shoulders lifting briefly before he looks back down at his lap.

Guilt curls its greedy fingers around Shane’s spine, cloying and thick against his throat. He swallows. “I’m sorry, too,” Shane says, eventually, voice not sounding quite like his own. Ryan looks up. “Your family. Ryan, I–” 

There aren’t words for what they’ve gone through in the last couple of days. Shane’s usual ability to talk himself out of a jam has deserted him, and he goes silent, unable to explain. Instead, he tilts his head back to look at the sky. Above them, the stars burn like beacons in the night, the spill of the Milky Way brilliant against the inky dark. Shane’s never seen them like this, not since he was a kid and his parents had taken them to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, far enough out from the bigger cities to have escaped the light pollution. 

Neither of them speak again for a long time. 

At some point, Shane realises that Ryan gets up to leave, but Shane doesn’t turn to watch him go. He’s too deep in turning over the moment he knew something had gone badly wrong, trying to piece together what might’ve happened, and trying to find the thread of Sara in the chaos, wondering if he’d seen something that day that might be able to give him a clue as to whether she’d made it out. 

The sound had been first, a crack like thunder right overhead and the long roll of a shockwave. The lights had flickered then died, the power going out with a crackling hum. At first, Shane had thought it was an earthquake, but then the shaking had stopped. There’d been a brief moment of silence while they all looked around at each other, Shane catching Devon’s eye across the bullpen. Then all the glass had blown out of every window, showering the bullpen in a rain of shards. Shane had ducked, throwing his arms up over his head. 

The next explosion had rocked Shane off his feet, sending him wobbling into his own desk and then down, into a heap of limbs. The whole building had shuddered with it, the sound of cracking drywall and groaning girders counterpoint to the first bewildered screams.  _ If this was an earthquake, _ Shane had thought, carefully getting back onto his feet,  _ it was bad _ . Ryan had gone off just before lunch, saying something about needing quiet to do some research, and Shane hadn’t seen him come back. He glanced over to where Sara’s desk had been before she’d moved to another part of the building and wondered if she was okay too. 

A hand had grabbed Shane’s arm. “Shane!” 

Devon, Shane had thought, and then looked up. She’d been caught by something, probably glass, and blood oozed down her temple from a cut near her hairline. 

“Are you alright?” she’d asked, and he’d nodded. “We need to get out of the building, onto the street, we’ll be safer there if the whole thing comes down.” 

“But Ryan–” 

“He knows the evac procedure.” Devon hadn’t let him argue any further, just pulled him along with her into the stream of people leaving the office. 

All the glass on every door at the front of the building had been shattered, and that first step out into the sun was alarming. Smoke rose into the sky, and Shane had heard the distant wail of sirens. People had poured out onto the street from all the buildings around them, a crowd gathering. The noise had been overwhelming. Shane had wanted to duck and cover. His hand had strayed to the back pocket of his pants, fumbling his phone out. He’d wanted to text Ryan, to call Sara, to find out if either of them were as bewildered as he was. 

Shane shakes his head, banishing the memories. He needs to be here and now, not back there and then. He blinks, then tugs off his glasses, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Luckily he’d been wearing them to work that day, too lazy to put in his contacts. The clear frames aren’t the ones he prefers–they have a habit of sliding down his nose–but they are what he has. Ryan’s got both contacts and glasses, though they haven’t had a mirror since they abandoned the car, so he’s been in glasses too. 

Shane resettles his frames onto his face, shoving one hand through his hair. It needs a wash; they both do. Showers are a luxury that Shane had never considered before, until this. What he would give for hot water and soap. He heaves himself to his feet, turning away from the expanse of unbroken wild and towards the mouth of the cave. 

Ryan has pulled together a pile of dry brush and is trying to get it to light. A tacit agreement that warming up canned food is better than eating it cold had formed between them, even though the first night they’d lit the fire Shane had spent the rest of the night dreadfully aware that out here, the light could be seen for miles. 

“Beans or beans or beans?” Ryan says, when Shane approaches, careful not to get in the way. 

“Beans,” Shane answers, dry. 

“Don’t have any of those,” Ryan quips back, shooting Shane a quick grin before he goes back to nursing the tiny flame he’s made in a nest of grass and torn paper. The flame catches finally, and the light bleeds into Ryan’s face, softening him. 

“Darn, I was really hoping for beans tonight.” Shane settles on the other side of the fire, and Ryan passes him a can. Shane’s pocket knife had been in Ryan’s bag, a miracle of misplaced packing while they were shooting the last season of Supernatural. The can opener attachment takes forever because it’s not very sharp, but it’s better than trying to get into cans with rocks or whatever else they might have found. Shane is glad to have something to do while Ryan feeds the fire. 

They eat in a shared fashion, passing the warmed can between them, careful not to burn their fingers, and when they’re done, Shane sinks back onto his elbows, stretching his legs out. 

“I miss showering,” he says. Ryan hums in agreement, reaching up to scuff his hand through his hair. The fire snaps, throwing up a shower of sparks, briefly illuminating the top of the overhang they’re sitting under. 

“I miss coffee,” Ryan says, shifting until he’s mirroring Shane’s position on the other side of the flames. “I miss the internet. God help me,” he says, glancing up at the stone above them, like it might offer some kind of deliverance, “I even miss Twitter.” 

Shane snorts. “You would.” 

“And you don’t?” 

“I mean,” Shane says, drawing the word out. “Sure, I miss the internet and stuff, but like, isn’t it nice not to have people constantly after you for some kind of validation for themselves?” 

“I guess,” Ryan hedges, but Shane knows he agrees. The life of a quasi-famous internet sensation has its bright moments to be sure, but the scum of the earth absolutely live in the comments sections of YouTube videos and lurk beneath the surface of Twitter mentions. It had been a hard adjustment for Sara, Shane remembers. 

Sara. Shane’s chest squeezes. “Do you–do you think she made it out?”

Ryan doesn’t ask who Shane means, just looks at him from across the flames. “I hope so, man. I really hope so.” 

It’s the sincerity that undoes him. Something in Shane’s chest cracks open, raw and pitiful. He can’t breathe for the weight of Sara’s maybe death on his chest. She’s gone, he thinks, left behind in that wreck of a city; maybe injured, maybe dead, but absolutely gone. “Sara,” he says, her name broken in half by the hitch in his voice. Shane’s fists clench, and he brings one hand up to his own mouth, setting his teeth against his knuckles, biting down against the swamping grief that rises in his throat.

The guilt that follows the initial burst of grief takes all the breath out of Shane’s lungs and makes him sway in his seat, reeling against the onslaught. It’s his fault. They should have stuck together, he should have pushed harder to find her, should have ignored Devon, should have gone to find Sara himself. Had she still been in the building when it had come down in a rumbling slide during one of the aftershocks? Shane closes his eyes, but all he can see behind them is her face, taut with pain, blood in the purple curl of her hair. 

With that image comes the swoop of nausea in his belly, and Shane gags, his eyes flying open.

Ryan’s still squatting on the other side of the flames. The dancing light throws shadows across his face. Shane swallows and breathes in, slow and steady. They don’t have a lot of food, he can’t afford to throw up what he’s just eaten. Ryan looks like maybe he wants to say something, but Shane can’t really afford to hear that either. He gets up, lurching to his feet, and stumbles back. 

“Shane?” Ryan’s voice follows him back out into the night but Shane ignores him. 

This is too much all at once, has been too much all at once since it started three days ago. There’s an itch under Shane’s skin, a tremor in his hands, and a feeling like he might fly completely apart at the seams. He’s not sure how Ryan is managing to stay so put together. Every time Shane closes his eyes, all he can see is the rubble of Ryan’s apartment complex. He doesn’t remember seeing the blood, but his brain is quite happy to superimpose it all over the concrete, and to imagine the impact of rebar into flesh. 

Shane keeps walking, eyes unseeing, gait unsteady. There’s a roaring in his ears. Shane’s heart thuds in his chest. His rib cage seems suddenly not strong enough to cage it, and Shane thinks he might be dying. Every breath is a struggle. What air he can pull in sears his lungs, making tears bead at the corners of his eyes. Shane stumbles over a loose rock. He goes down, landing hard on his hands, palms flat against the dirt. Shane gasps at the impact, head hanging between his shoulders, eyes flying open. His left knee twinges.

He still can’t seem to get enough breath, nor can he hear anything over the hammering of his heart in his ears. Shane’s elbows give out and he nearly collapses face-first into the dirt, catching himself at the last moment. The air around him presses down, a heavy weight against the line of his spine, and Shane wants to let it crush him down into nothing, because maybe then he won’t feel like this anymore. Maybe then he won’t have to keep tripping over the void that lives between his ribs, because God, it hurts to breathe around it. 

A warm weight settles in between Shane’s shoulder blades. 

The flex of Ryan’s fingers against Shane’s spine is something to focus on other than the weight in his chest, something other than the feeling of impending doom spreading like an oil slick across Shane’s nervous system. Shane forces his eyes open, staring down at the ground beneath him. The dirt is washed colourless in the moonshadow. Shane can feel the grit of it under his nails where his fingers are curled like claws, digging into the earth, as if it might hold him together. 

Ryan doesn’t speak, just presses his hand against the centre of Shane’s back, offering a way back from the edge of the panic, a map that Shane can follow to return to a somewhat even keel. Shane draws in a breath, and exhales, long and slow. Some far away part of him recognizes this as a panic attack, and Shane knows how to deal with those. He’s walked Ryan through several. It’s harder to walk yourself through one, Shane is finding. He knows he needs to breathe, to pull in air, long and slow and meditatively, to find something for his eyes to focus on. 

Another breath, this one still somewhat shaky. Shane blinks. Ryan’s hand remains where he put it, fingers spread, thumb and pinky against each one of Shane’s shoulder blades. Shane can feel the warmth of Ryan’s skin through the thin material of his shirt. Shane blinks again. The air around him is cool enough now that he can feel the chill on the tips of his ears. Shane catalogues the sensation; it’s new and not at all related to any of the previous panic, and it helps, just like Ryan’s hand, to start loosening the vise-grip on his chest. 

Shane takes another breath and gets a lungful of the smell of dirt and his own sweat. Now that he’s noticed it, he can feel it cooling on his skin and he shivers. Ryan’s fingers flex, neither a tightening nor a loosening, just a movement to let Shane know he’s there and still holding on. That’s it though, isn’t it? Ryan’s holding on. Ryan’s still holding on. Shane grits his teeth. He can hold on too. He can. He will. 

Shane takes a deep breath, and lets his head hang forward, feeling the tension in his shoulders and the ache in his elbows where they’ve been locked to keep him from collapsing face-first into the ground. He shifts back. Ryan lets him, hand moving with him as Shane sits back, tipping to the side so he’s not sitting on his feet. Ryan’s hand ends up on his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Ryan says, but Shane’s not quite back enough yet for the word to be more than background noise. “Shane? You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

Ryan’s voice washes into the background hum under the heave and gasp of Shane’s breathing and the thunder of his heart. Ryan’s hand is an anchor on his shoulder. Shane reaches up, tangling their fingers together. Ryan holds on tight, fingers curled around Shane’s. Shane can feel the steady beat of Ryan’s pulse under the pad of his thumb, pressed against Ryan’s wrist. 

“You’re alright,” Ryan says. “Just breathe, okay?” 

Shane knows he’s being talked down. He’s done it enough times for Ryan that the quiet patter of soothing comfort words are familiar, but this is probably the first time Ryan’s had to talk him through something like this. Shane isn’t keen on this feeling. He feels both untethered and uncomfortably trapped within his skin. He wants to move but doesn’t think he could stand. He settles for keeping a hold on Ryan’s hand. 

“You’re okay,” Ryan says, closer. Shane can feel the heat of him now, the firm line of his chest pressed against Shane’s shoulder. Ryan runs hot when he’s stressed and right now, his hand is warm in the clammy grip of Shane’s own. 

Gradually, other sensations crowd back into the forefront of Shane’s mind. His knee hurts, a dull throb underneath the lessening thud of his heart. The feather light brush of Ryan’s breath across their entwined knuckles makes Shane want to shiver. 

“Ry,” Shane manages, finally, lips and tongue clumsy. He wants to say more but all the concrete words slip out of his head before he can think about holding onto them. The desert is quiet around them. Shane thinks it’s probably never been this quiet out here in his lifetime. The thought makes his breath hitch.

“Hey,” Ryan says, soft and fond. His thumb rubs against the side of Shane’s hand. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane says slowly. Now that he’s pulled back from the panicky edge, he feels completely wrung out and strangely hollow, like everything inside him has been scooped out and his insides scraped clean. This new kind of emptiness is foreign and it makes him feel like a fawn on the edge of a clearing, unable to step into the sunlight for fear of the eyes of the wolf lying in wait. Shane knows this is only a temporary reprieve from the sucking void that was there before and that the abyss will return, en masse, to try and drag him under again. He hopes Ryan’s there the next time, too.

“Don’t be,” Ryan insists, and his thumb keeps up its smooth glide. “I’m here, okay?” 

There’s a promise in Ryan’s words. It makes something crack open inside Shane’s chest and he has to blink back the burn of tears at the back of his eyes. 

“I mean it, Shane,” Ryan says, “and not just ‘cause the world ended three days ago and you’re all I have left.” One side of Ryan’s mouth lifts in a half-smile. Ryan’s waiting for Shane to dodge the moment, the way he usually does, the way the both of them usually do, but Shane finds himself unwilling to laugh away the sincerity of Ryan’s words. 

Shane sniffs. He wipes a hand on his thigh, then brings it up to pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Ryan’s hand tightens on Shane’s shoulder. “Thanks,” Shane says, trying to imbue the word with all the things he’s thankful for. He’s not sure he manages it, but he thinks Ryan gets the gist. 

“You think you can walk?” Ryan asks, after letting the moment between them pass in silence. Shane nods. Ryan shifts back, and then gets to his feet, reaching down to help Shane up after him. Shane takes Ryan’s hand, their palms sliding together. It’s not any different than the multitude of other times Ryan has pulled Shane to his feet, except this time, when Shane gets his feet back under him and rises to his full height, he doesn’t let Ryan’s hand go. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and chat with me about my fic on [tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumblr.com) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic).


End file.
